Miami Is Awash in Awful Bitcoin-Conference Parties, Including One With Flo Rida

Miami, much like its tourist-haven compatriot Last Vegas, regularly gets flooded with odd groups of convention delegates. Typically, those attendees represent boring industries like the National Corn Growers' Association. But this week, Miami has been invaded by Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors.

Perhaps the world's most important cryptocurrency convention — the North American Bitcoin Conference — has been going on in Miami all week, at the exact moment that exchange rates for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and other major investment scams forms of new online currency are plummeting worldwide.

So what's there to do when you've lost your parents' life savings by dumping money into a cryptocurrency named for the Doge meme? Hire Flo Rida to sing-rap away your troubles. The Miami Gardens native and extremely forgettable pop icon showed up with colleagues Pleasure P and Gorilla Zoe at South Beach's Baoli bar last night to serenade workers from tZero, a cryptocurrency startup founded by Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne. As Bitcoin's exchange rate took a nosedive, Flo Rida serenaded the group with heartfelt renditions of his megahits "Low" and "My House" as an extremely white, wonky crowd sipped bubbly and desperately avoided reading business news. An extremely bright friend of New Times dubbed this week's Bitcoin-party circuit the "Nerdcage," after the 1996 Robin Williams film that was a sort of La Cage aux Folles on Ocean Drive.

Last night appeared to peak with Flo Rida popping champagne bottles with Byrne, one of Bitcoin's loudest and richest evangelists:

Searching the #BTCMiami hashtag on Twitter reveals a netherworld of insane cryptocurrency stunts and scams going on in Miami this week. Exhibit A: Someone is selling a Lamborghini only via cryptocurrency tokens. (It's been labeled a "#Bitcar.") Because the entire cryptocurrency market is a confusing mess, the sellers had to list exchange rates for five kinds of cryptocurrencies on the side of the car, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and Trom, which in 2018 are usable forms of money and not the names of low-level members of the Justice League.

Crypto-investors who are adamant that the technology isn't about to go bust are welcome to invest in my newest coin offering, Tulipcoin.

Jerry Iannelli is Miami New Times' daily-news reporter. He graduated with honors from Temple University. He then earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. He moved to South Florida in 2015.